Get out the rain, Cecil. Go on up there and face the woman. She ain’t gon’ do nothing to you. Hell, she can’t even talk, thank the Lord, and, Lord, please forgive me for thanking it. But those eyes of hers. She can cut glass with ’em. Ain’t gotta say a single word. Do it, Cecil. Stop acting like such a chump. Besides, I need to hurry up and get home. I forgot. Brenda asked me to stop by the store and pick up some hamburger meat and ketchup. She making Sloppy Joes. Her kids is greedy. Don’t eat nothing but junk, and that baby eat like a grown man. I don’t know how they growing, and I told Brenda they should really be getting more vegetables. She said the only kind they’ll eat come in a can: them waxed yellow string beans or creamed-style corn. This ain’t exactly what I had in mind, but it’s a start. When she do get around to cooking, Brenda is something in the kitchen. She say she wish she could afford a housekeeper. She sure could use one. But it’s okay. I ain’t been there long enough to make no changes, but I will. As soon as I get settled in. When it feel like I live there and not just on a long vacation.

I like Brenda. I like the way she make me feel. Like I’m something. She say she thirty-one, but I thank she lying about her age. She look older than that. But I don’t care. She was born and raised right here in West Vegas. Her people live right down the street and around the corner, but they ain’t no help to her. They worse off than she is, depending on how you look at it.

Move your feet, Cecil. And I do. This time I run toward the hospital entrance, and when I get inside I go over to the front desk. “I forgot my keys up in my wife’s room. Her name is Viola Price and . . .”

The lady holds up her hand and dangles my keys in front of me. “She figured you’d be back for them.”

“Thank you,” I say. I take them from her real slow. The keys is cold. And I feel bad. I feel real bad. I walk out the hard way, through those revolving doors, and head toward my car. It stopped raining. This time I don’t bother to look up toward Viola’s window, ’cause she might be looking at me. She might be thanking that she still got the power: over me. But she don’t. When I get to my car, I know I should let it run for a few minutes, since it’s fifteen years old, but I don’t. I gotta hurry up and get to the store. I got some hungry kids at home. Maybe I’ll get Brenda a forty. But, then again, maybe I won’t.

Clearing House Sweepstakes

I don’t care what nobody say, ain’t nothing wrong with me. In fact, I’m fine. Perfectly fine. My life is going along better than I expected. It ain’t perfect, but it ain’t as messed up as Mama and everybody else in my family seem to think it is either. To be perfectly honest, sometimes I wish there was a way I could start my life over. And sometimes I wish I’da been born white. Things probably woulda been a helluva lot easier. More like a straight line to some-damn-where instead of this S-curve to no-fucking-where.